Sally faints and wakes up in a room that feels strange yet familiar. Her mother, Greta, and her father, Albert, are the governors of Dream Town. They tell her that when she was 12 years old, she was kidnapped by a pale man with a large head, who snatched her from her room and ran away with her. That must have been Doctor Finkelstein. They tried to follow, but the doors into the other worlds had been blocked from the other side.

They tell her a little bit about her life before she was taken. Sally doesn’t remember any of it, yet it feels familiar. She realizes she is a real person, a loved child. Her parents want to show her around Dream Town, making up for all the lost time they never had with her. The mention of time reminds Sally of how little she has. The people of Halloween Town and all the other holiday worlds are still sleeping. She tells her parents what is happened and begs them to help her find a way to stop the Sandman. Her parents tell her it is not that simple. They offer to show her the town so that she may be able to understand.